finish a young man's education,
and consequently that the men whom it employs for such a purpose--its
professors--are, or at least ought to be, abler men than the teachers
proper. The difference, then, between professor and teacher is one of
degree, and not of kind. Both teach, and both teach in great part the
same subjects and in substantially the same way; that is, by means
of textbook and recitation. Herein lies the explanation of the
disposition evinced by some of our best schools to call their teachers
"professors." An institution like Phillips Exeter or Andover can
scarcely be said to assume more than it is entitled to in putting
itself on an equality with Hobart College or Racine.

On turning to Germany, we observe no such laxity in the use of the
term "professor." He, and he only, is professor who "professes" to
have made himself eminent in his special branch, and whose claims have
been allowed officially by a university or by the government. He is
not even a teacher in the English or American sense. He is a scholar
and investigator who has produced results worthy of distinction, and
it is upon the strength of those results, and not because of his real
or supposed ability to impart knowledge and stimulate industry among
students, that he receives his call to a university chair.[1]

[Footnote 1: The circumstance that some of the gymnasium-teachers in
Germany have the title of "professor" does not affect the above view.
The title has been expressly conferred upon them by the government as
a mark of special distinction, either for long services or for unusual
scholarship--in most cases for the latter. Where schools of the
highest order are so numerous as they are in Germany, it is not
surprising that they should count among their teachers men of profound
scholarship. The official recognition paid to such men is only an
additional proof of the care with which the title is used. It is given
to the teacher, not so much because he is a good teacher, as because
he has done something over and above school-room work.]

The words of one who is himself a leading professor in one of the
most renowned universities are so explicit upon this point that they
deserve to be translated and carefully studied. Heinrich von Sybel, in
his academic address delivered at Bonn in 1868, says: "The excellence
of our universities is to be found in the fact that they are not
mere institutions where instruction is given, but are workshops
o